February 08, 2013

Interesting Apple News is ongoing and it comes in from every imaginable source. As a service to our fan base, Patently Apple introduces MoreNews, a new segment that will list daily links to reports that we think you'll find interesting and/or important from sources around the web. Our new MoreNews segment will primarily be posted on weekdays and our headlines will be refreshed throughout the day. Welcome to MoreNews.

In late January we asked the question: Is There More to Apple's Move to Sell 28 Cent Songs in India? Well, according to a new report out of Bangalore India today, Apple has more than tripled their sales in the last quarter. Apple, according to the report, which has for long ignored India, appears to be vying for the attention of the affluent Indian smartphone buyer who has been cultivated assiduously by rival Samsung for many years. The increased level of interest in India is happening in the backdrop of concern among Apple's investors that the iconic company may have hit a plateau as smartphone penetration levels saturate in developed markets.

According to news from Seoul's Jose Ilbo's online newspaper, Apple has recently recruited a former senior researcher at LG Display, Dr. Lee Jeung-jil, who was in charge of researching OLED printing technology. Prior to joining LG Display, Lee was a part of the P-OLED research at Cambridge Display Technology (now owned by Sumitomo). The report concludes that "By recruiting an OLED expert, Apple may be working to develop its own OLED display." The question that Apple may be working on OLED should be put into context. The fact is that Apple has been working on OLED since at least 2009 and in fact has just been granted a patent regarding OLED fabrication.

Late yesterday Greenlight Capital under Greenlight Entities launched a formal lawsuit against Apple over matters of securities. Greenlight is requesting that the courts force Apple to allow shareholders to vote on particular amendments without them being illegally bundled as they currently are. Our report covers what the court filing covers along with formal statements by both Greenlight and Apple.

February 07, 2013

Google has a new Concept Video out about their upcoming "Chromebook Pixel." It's a slab of marketing out to copy Apple's Retina Display which is the most advanced display on the planet delivering crisp images, text and most importantly color accuracy that's yet to be matched. Google knows all too well that Apple has the Retina advantage and they're out to try and fuzzy that all up with slick marketing tactics. In the end it's a broken mirror. Our report covers two videos and a transcript of Google's video. Check it out.

On February 7, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published 32 patent applications from Apple for which 12 of them were continuation patents. In this report we briefly cover two of Apple's latest inventions. The first relates to a future iPhone's hearing aid detection technology and the second relates to Apple's application of nano-silica fiber coatings in such hardware as the iPhone. We close out our report with a listing of ten additional patent applications with one of them relating to the original iPod Shuffle that lists Apple's Late Cofounder and CEO Steve Jobs as the lead inventor.

On February 7, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple titled "Image-Based Authentication." The inventor noted on the patent application is Apple's Quality Assurance Manager for Apple TV, Ethan Lowry. Apple's invention generally relates to authenticating a user of a computing device by displaying one or more images to the user and receiving input that identifies object(s) depicted in the one or more images. Apple currently has a number of next generation authentication systems in the wings. One similar to today's invention was published in September 2012 regarding Facial Recognition. A second involves a two-step slide-to-unlock process and a third that is most promising involves a straight forward fingerprint scanning process associated with today's slide-to-unlock process. Today's invention while interesting, is a little complicated in contrast to Apple's one step fingerprint scanner. Yet until Apple actually introduces their next generation authentication system, we can't rule out any of their future approaches.

February 06, 2013

Today, Chinese language paper Want Daily is reporting an interesting tid bit of news about one of Apple's suppliers. According to the report, FLEXium Interconnect, a Taiwan-based flexible printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturer, has been chosen to be the supplier for Apple's iPhone 7. That's right, the iPhone 7 or two generations from the current model. The supposed catch is that the company has to move their production to Taiwan.

In Q4 2012, Samsung's leap to a 5 inch display for their Galaxy smartphone line-up seemed to attract more consumers to their phones than usual even though Apple completely redesigned their iPhone with its many refinements. The lesson here is simple: if the consumer can't readily see a smartphone's advances or refinements, then for all intents and purposes they don't exist. With the market now jammed with me-too competitors, every new high-end feature, gimmicky or not, is what consumers in key demographics will be judging their next smartphone by. While Apple has some great ideas on the drawing board such as an advanced iWallet app and service, 3D interfaces, smart cameras, advanced wireless charging, smart bezels, integrated projectors for business use and so much more, we really don't have a clue as to when or if Apple will prioritize any of them for 2013. What Apple will attract consumers with for the all-important Q4 time frame is anyone's guess at this point in time and Apple is comfortable with that tactic as it's worked for them in the past. Yet within that time void, the competition will be teasing the market with interesting upcoming features that will launch well ahead of the next version of the iPhone. Undoubtedly, some of these features will hold sway with younger consumers. The latest case in point comes by way of HTC.

In December Apple launched iTunes Store in Russia and just last week Apple organized a week-long seminar for Russian regional ministers of education in London in a new effort to drum up business in Russia. That's understandable considering that a new study published by mobile retailer Euroset shows that Apple's iPhone in Q4 2012 only held a 6% market share in Russia, a distant third to Nokia and Samsung who combined held a 63% market share. The study showed that price alone was the reason for Apple's poor showing as there's not much of a middle class in Russia. Yet with Apple aggressively entering the Indian market with 28 cent iTunes, Gartner IT analyst believes that Apple is making a move in India. In general, Apple may be kick starting a more concentrated move into larger and tougher markets like India and Russia in 2013. However, in order for Apple to make a measurable dent in these markets to seriously challenge the likes of Nokia and Samsung, Apple will need to offer a more economical iPhone to lead the charge which the rumor mill believes is going to happen later this year. The report came by way of Business TASS, Russia's news agency stationed in Moscow.

A DigiTimes morning report states that out of Apple's announced iPhone shipments of 47.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012, only half of that volume was from the latest iPhone 5. Supply Chain sources told DigiTimes that the iPhone 4S still contributed about 20 million units to Apple's bottom line. For now it would appear that the iPhone 4S is positioned as Apple's value play. The report states that the strength of Apple's iPhone 4S sales were unexpected. The report interestingly added that Pegatron Technology is the company who makes the iPhone 4S and iPad mini and not Foxconn.

February 05, 2013

Google's Engineers have taken Larry Page's vision of taking Moon Shots a little too seriously. The Patent Figure that you see above is from one of Google's patent titled, "Touch-Screen Keyboard Facilitating Touch Typing with Minimal Finger Movement." The core of the patent is about a "keyboard operation module that generates geometric shapes for display on a touch-screen display, each geometric shape corresponding to a respective finger of a user." Google first understood that "switching to a more efficient type of a touch-screen keyboard may require too much learning time from a user to justify a switch." Then they deliberately went forward and invented this wacky V-shaped keyboard that's an ergonomic nightmare. But hey, it's a Moon Shot and that will make Google's leader happy. Go Figure.

An Asian report published today states that a global information technology expert has openly slammed Google's business practices, calling it "deceptive." He stressed the importance of increased awareness to protect public institutions' information. Jeff Gould, president of SafeGov, a U.S.-based non-profit organization that promotes Internet privacy and security, criticized the search giant's intentional withholding of how much data they are gathering from consumers.

It's being reported this morning that Apple and other online retailers did not break California law by requiring consumers to provide their address and phone numbers as a condition of accepting credit card payments, the state's high court ruled. In a split decision, the California Supreme Court said state privacy protections for credit cards do not apply to online purchases that are downloaded electronically.

In 2010 MONKEYmedia® filed a lawsuit against Apple for infringing claims in three of MONKEYmedia's Seamless Contraction patents. Apple's infringement involves its user interfaces for document summarization, RSS readers and video players that can display multiple versions of text and/or audiovisual content. Today, MONKEYmedia announced that the US Patent Office has issued MONKEYmedia two additional patents regarding their "Relativity Controller" family of patents covering 200 patent claims that they'll be able to add to their lawsuit against Apple, Disney, Fox, Lionsgate, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner. MONKEYmedia is a privately held user interface design studio founded in 1994 by Janna Buckmaster Bear and Eric Gould Bear, an Apple, Microsoft and Yahoo! alumnus.

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 40 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In today's granted patent wrap-up report we present you with links to a number of key granted patents. Two of the patents cover key iOS interfaces while others cover OLED display panel fabrication and iDevice compass calibration. Closing out our report is a master list of the other patents granted to Apple today that we didn't cover.

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 40 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we cover a real little shocker. In this granted patent Apple reveals that they've been working on display panel technology that integrates both touch and solar cells on a single panel since a little after launching their revolutionary iPhone. Apple's follow-up patent to this current one was published in 2010.

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published two newly granted design patents for Apple Inc. today. The first covers Apple's 3GS iPhone crediting the late CEO and cofounder Steve Jobs and the second covers the iPhone's "Slide to Unlock" feature which has had variable success in their legal battles against Android OEMs.

February 04, 2013

On January tenth it was reported that Apple acquired Anobit Technologies Ltd., an Israeli flash-memory based company. Today, a filing published by the US Patent and Trademark Office shows that Apple is still supporting a trademark filing that was made by Anobit prior to the acquisition titled "Making Flash Better." Whether Apple intends to fit this trademark into some of their future product marketing verbiage is unknown at this time.

Another Galaxy smartphone has exploded and injured its owner, reports The Chosunilbo. The South Korean Bupyeong Fire Station in Incheon on Sunday stated that a 55-year-old man reported that his smartphone battery blew up in his pocket. The injured man who is being treated for second-degree burns to his thigh stated that his Samsung Galaxy Note along with a spare battery in his pocket just suddenly blew up. This latest incident could be added to a number of noted Galaxy Note 2 problems.

In January of this year we reported that China Labor Watch was noting that Foxconn wasn't providing their workforce with a communication channel to voice their frustrations that resulted in a strike. According to strike participants, they carried out the strike to demand higher wages and better working conditions. This morning, Reuters is reporting that Foxconn Technology Group is trying to raise participation in its union as part of efforts to dispel a rash of bad publicity over poor working conditions and labor disputes.

Tokyo's Nikkei national media conglomerate covering business, finance and industry news is reporting this morning that Apple is amongst a number of tech companies that are interested in a new kind of optical film that could create images with better picture quality than OLED film. Due to the film's low cost, it could replace other, more expensive films that have been used to create LCDs.

With all the talk in the press about Samsung being the king of smartphones, the real stats show a much different picture. It was reported last week that Apple has surpassed Samsung to become the top mobile-phone maker in the U.S. and a new reportissued by Hong Kong's Counterpoint Research clearly acknowledges that Apple nabbed 70% of the global smartphone profits, Samsung 25% and Nokia 2%. How great is Samsung's leadership when they could only muster about a third of Apple's profits while offering 5 to 10 more smartphone models than Apple? It just goes to prove that Samsung's so-called smartphone leadership is in bravado alone pumped up by the press who thinks that market share is the only measure of leadership.

The current iPad mini offers a 7.9‑inch (diagonal) LED-backlit Multi‑Touch display with IPS technology with 1024-by-768 resolution at 163 pixels per inch. News this morning from "My Drivers," a Chinese website covering the IT industry and product launches, is that AU Optronics is piloting the production of the iPad mini 2 that will deliver pixel density at 2048 x 1536 pixels at 324 pixels per inch. Apple's current Flagship iPad 4's Retina display only offers 264 pixels per inch on a much larger 9.7 inch display. So the iPad mini 2 is actually going to take the Retina display to a whole new level.